


Fractured

by Augustus



Category: Five (Band), Popslash
Genre: M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-05-21
Updated: 2002-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-09 07:38:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3241592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Augustus/pseuds/Augustus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean walks in on something he really didn’t want to see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fractured

(begin)

From the very first time you touched me, I began to fall in love with you.

(Wait. Resolve. Wait.)

The hallway seems faded, weakened and diluted from decades of this harsh, summer light. The sun curls dappled patterns across the walls and the floor squeaks beneath my feet, pockmarked linoleum shining from too much wax. I know your room number as I do my own, know to count three doors to the left of the staircase once I’ve descended from the floor above. You never lock your door.

[the others say you are too trusting, but you once told me it’s your way of taunting fate. i never doubted you could handle any intruder. charm them with your eyes or intimidate them with a word or gesture. you never intimidated me, but sometimes you made me fear myself.]

Look inside.

_Look._

(And there really shouldn’t be any fear or jealousy in watching two friends talking on a sofa. Just breathe and smile and walk on in and don’t freeze.)

I shouldn’t be here. Spying at a half-open door, dressed in uncertain jealousy. Nothing to see, nothing to note, nothing to push and pull and stutter my breath. I make much of this exclusivity, paint worlds and reasons that are not really there. (If it were anyone but him my heart would beat an everyday rhythm and I would pass on by without pausing.) I wait because I need to see you, wash my gaze over golden skin and carefully disarranged hair. In my mind, I sit facing you as he does, knees brushing warm through summer-thin fabric.

(When you touch me, it is wonderful. Every nerve stretches out to you.)

I will the adrenalin to fade, for this panicked pulse to slow. Recite a mantra of innocence. Blink and freeze as you link fingers, press your palm to his and smile as though this is a well-rehearsed move. Cue Abs. He stretches your arms outwards, folds your torsos neatly together and effortlessly marks you as his own. (Mine. Always mine. Forever mine. _Mine_. Not mine.) Dreams – nightmares – are gilded as delusions, imploding and settling to the ground like fractured dust. I see. Believe. Hurt.

(This hurts. It hurts. Begins at my toes and grows to a scream within my head. Close eyes against the image but it remains within me.)

Inverted. Intensified.

I breathe. Watch. My heart pounds and misses and jolts within me, knocked loose by the moment. Cold sweat pricks tiny paths across my neck, each hair on my head felt and acknowledged and screaming its presence. Time does not freeze, simply my blood. My soul. (Not now, not here, not him, not…) My tears tickle and itch as they mark my cheeks, salty-sticky patterns of crass, inexcusable weakness. And I will not break, will not care, will not forget to breath until my chest aches and complains and tries ohsofuckinghard to pretend it’s nothing to do with my heart and nothing to do with this and never anything to do with him. Him. Not him. (Never. Always.) Breathe in, wait, exhale. Breathe in, wait, exhale. Don’t look.

(Look. Blink and blink and pretend the dampness isn’t there. Look.)

_Look._

His hands fit around you as though it was always meant to be like this. Perhaps it was. Perhaps this is predestined, the sensation of being crushed by the look in his (in _your_ ) eyes. I watch and I see and a part of me dissolves. A kiss. His touch is possessive: fingers claiming, marking, tangling and twisting in the folds of your clothing.

[and i remember when i gave you that shirt. cold winter with carols providing a faint and frozen soundtrack. you smiled and said you loved it and hugged me as though it were a tackle. i could feel your heart beat. i told you i loved you inside my mind.]

He loves you. I see (know) it, even if you remain blind. I’ve never seen him this serious, never seen his lips twist with emotion, or the fragile flit-and-shiver of dark lashes. Denial brands the moment a dream. My hands clench. Unclench. Wait for you to see me, clutch the summer-icy wood of the doorframe and blink away the clawing pain within my throat. When you look up, it’s only him you see. (Try not to ask myself what it is about him, what you see lacking in me. Try not to ask why. Fail.) His eyes blink sleepily (happily) above awed and smiling lips, arms sliding comfortably around you. Arms and eyes and mouths and lips. Kiss.

(Kiss. Bodies indistinguishable. You fit. It works and it hurts and I shouldn’t be seeing this, don’t want to be seeing this. Won’t. Can’t.)

Am.

[when i was a boy, i always wished for the toys i could not have. expensive model cars and aeroplanes that really flew. i would play rugby with the other boys and dream of being the best. my mother told me i would make a real catch for a lucky girl some day. she always liked you, even if she didn’t know.]

Speak. Split the silence.

I love you, J. The words do not take on the form of my voice, high and shivering as they evade my lips. And you see me now and so does he, although he turns and reddens and sinks away from my pain. You blink and breathe and look shocked and scared and so fucking uncomfortable that I wish this moment was ten years past or yet to come. (Just say it. Say it. _Say it_.) I watch your mouth and its immobility. I watch your eyes and wait for the imminent light of happiness that’s so slow to make an appearance. I watch your shoulders tense within your clothing and your hands clenching and unclenching. I watch. He fades.

(I love you as a brother, you say. I always _will_ love you, you say. But not like that, you say. You say. _You say_.)

Not like that.

And I know it hurts you to say it, but there is no uncertainty masked within the truth. You close your eyes as though to pretend I am not here and I wish it could be so for you. I regret, cringe, want to feel your arms around me in our allocated happy ending. You will not look at me. I cannot look away from you. I cannot breath. I cannot _breathe_. I cannot…

[when we first met, you would wrap me in a headlock, making me smile and my neck tingle at the contact. you joked that we were soul-mates, kept apart only by age and gender. and whenever i left you i would pretend that i saw a promise in your eyes.]

(shatter)

**21st May 2002**


End file.
